Untitled

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” my grandmother would bellow every Sunday standing at the podium on the elevated violet pulpit that separated her from the congregation. My grandmother was also my pastor, and she was giving another one of her “fire and brimstone” sermons that condemned everyone in the congregation to eternal damnation. Everyone was branded with a Scarlet letter, from Adultery to Masturbation, to Worrying. She had just admonished everyone to, “ live right because Jesus is coming back any second now. You don’t want him to come back and you’re sinning.” With that message out of the way, she began to quote various scriptures that seemed to come from a bible she created, because I could never find these scriptures in Ezekiel or Thessalonians. “A liar will not tarry in his sight,” and “God said repent,” were two other scriptures she quoted frequently from the book of Catherine. Although my grandmothers’ words did not make the canon, they were still scribbled fastidiously in the notebooks of the fervent churchgoers of Deliverance House of God Prayer for All People right under John 3:16 and a theological analysis of Psalms 23. My grandmother may have not been John the Baptist, but she raised eight successful children; and John, knew nothing about that subject.
*
The first memories I have of my father are of him beating me. Every morning I would wake to the sun shining across my face, and I would stare at the roof of the small apartment. I had been potty trained at eight months, but I would never go to the toilet--at least, not in the bathroom. My dad turned all the lights out and told me the devil would get me if I got out of the bed. Jumping out of my bed, because my crib was forfeited to my baby sister who needed it more than I did, I would strip the mattress of the wet sheet. After running across the floor, tiptoeing past my parent’s room , and depositing the sheet into the laundry basket, I would think I was safe. One day I wasn’t; I turned around and there he was, a giant against my feeble frame. “What were you doing?” “Nothing,” I answered innocently. I followed his gaze to my briefs. “Go lay on the bed and take off your wet drawers,” he said firmly. I ran to the bed to remove my underwear and lie face down into the mattress, making sure not to hit the wet part. Every part would soon become the wet part from my tears. Didn’t he realize it was only once this week? I can’t hold it long enough for the devil to leave the apartment. Why couldn’t I be good? “Shut up all them tears,” I would hear from the next room, and the jingle of the belt prong hitting the buckle. My butt cheeks would clench, and the floor would creak, and I would see his shadow grow along the white wall looking like the devil of the day time. As his shadow shrunk in size, it retained its grotesque shape, and my fear grew larger.
I would scream, stomp in place as if running away, grab for the belt, regret it when my knuckles were hit and he would scream, “now you’re going to get more for trying to grab the belt,” and wonder when it would be over. Then the belt would drop one end of the belt and hold the other in his hand. I refused to look at him, and the metal would jangle and every so often it would hit the side of my thigh. The cool metal against the fire burning on my skin would break the wall I rebuilt daily to contain my hatred for my father. Daddy didn’t do it though, I did this and it was I whom I hated.
*
My father has always had a vast belt collection. They all looked the same to me, I only know their difference from the way they feel across my skin. Throughout the years he began to play this cruel game whenever I did something wrong I had to choose which belt he would use to beat me. Standing at the closet with over thirty belts hanging in the old pine closet next to his suits and ties, my heart would start to palpitate. I would feel the leather and rub my finger along the material. I would feel how thick the belt was, take it down and see how heavy it felt in my hands. After filtering my options down to two belts I would bring the end of the belt to the buckle the same way my father would minutes from my selection. I would hit my arm with the belt. This one didn’t hurt as much as that one. I’m going to choose this one. My father had a way of making this one feel like that one, and every one.
*
Through the moonlit valley of the shadow of death I sleep walk wide awake. Intentions pure the devil stays at bay. The shadows are mine, and they leave behind my childhood. I am a man. Daddy thought mommy was me and tried to hit her with a belt. He realized she wasn’t me and dropped the belt, his fist would suffice. Mommy forgot daddy was daddy and used her fist to grab a knife. He don’t live here no more. His void can only be filled by me, I am the only other male in this house. Mommy needs someone to hold her. Climbing into the bed beside my mother a new life begins, a life as a man.
*
I hated the way my sister would yell when she got beat. I would scream Jesus repeatedly, and my father would yell back, “ You shoulda been saying Jesus when you did what you did.” My sister expressed her pain with screams that disturbed my soul. Screams like those of my mother. She would constantly break things and hide them, poorly. When my father would fin the broken item he would ask us both who broke it. I didn’t break it. Sometimes, I did break the thing, but I would reassemble the shattered object. For ten minutes he would ask who broke the object, and we’d both plead innocent. He’d then decide that he would beat us both. She would start crying, and I would roll my eyes. I don’t want to hear her screams, they made me feel like I was being beat. “I broke it,” I’d say heroically. “Now, you’re going to get more for lying”.
*
“Someone called me up the other day talking about their child called DHS on them. She wanted to beat her child all over the place with a switch. If you’re going to beat your children you either get a ruler and beat them on their knuckles, or you get a belt and hit them buttocks. All that running, hooping, and hollering is too much for me, especially in my old age. Tell them the more they run the more you‘re going to hit them. Bend them over a chair or the bed, and hit them until the Lord tells you to stop. The Lord will tell you how many times they need to be hit. Any more than what Jesus says is abuse. Children,” Grandma Pastor would turn to the children section of the congregation looming over the podium, “ you call DHS if you want to. I told my children, ’call DHS if you want and tell them to take your little sister too‘. If the state thinks they can do a better job of raising my children than they should have them. Don’t let these children scare you into not beating them with DHS.”
*
“I’m going to call DHS on you,” I screamed at my mother. She grabbed the yellow book and telephone. “ Here is the number, when you get done go pack your bags and be a good orphan” she said as she walked away briskly. Her nonchalance disturbed me to my soul. I put the phone down, and picked up the sponge to scrub the floors instead of just mopping as requested.
*
My father never said he loved me. He would take me on long car drives and he would rub my head, and that’s how I knew I was loved. The affection I felt and the privacy we shared on that car ride. Today, is extremely difficult for my father. He is an ordained minister, and decided to preside over his father’s funeral. He is in the middle of the eulogy and trying to remember all the good times he shared with his father- they are few. He hated his father., but still visited him in the hospital every Wednesday for several years. Grandpa had an advanced diabetes. He had to have both his legs amputated, and continued to drink Pepsi and eat gluttonously. He was a charmer and was able to get the nurses at the hospital to bring him ham and other delicacies to his hospital room. Grandpa was verbally and physically abusive to his entire family. He beat my grandmother Thelma in the head with glass plates, and cheated on her repeatedly. She recounts him as, “the biggest whore this side of Broad Street.” My father experienced overwhelming abuse from my grandfather. He was always confused why he had to be punished while his older brother, Daniel, went without reprimand for all his devious actions. My father discovered when he was 21 that Grandpa was not Daniel’s father.
*
I’m standing in the kitchen, hugging myself. My mother joins my embrace seconds later. “I didn’t even do anything, “ I utter confused. “ I know,” my mother offered trying to soothe me, “I know. Your father just has to learn to stop taking his issues out on you. He sees his father and he sees himself, and he sees you, and he can‘t handle it.” Ten minutes ago, I stood in the hallway telling my father why my science project wasn’t finished. He pulled his belt off accusing me of lying and wondering why I was always being bad. He brought the belt into the air, and struck me in the face. The belt struck my cheeks, then the back of my head. He hit my glasses pushing them back and the nose pieces scratched the sides of my nose, and eventually breaking them. My mother yelled hysterics in the background, as I recoiled from each blow to my face. “Go downstairs and get your project done.” My legs shook from all the nerves rushing over my body, and my synapses danced and erupted with confusion. My father lifted the belt once more, and they all understood to go down the stairs. My science project almost won the state championship.
*
“I beat you because I love you,” my father said to me one time as we drove to church. “You don’t understand in this world as a black man the trials you are going to encounter, yet. I am trying to prepare you to be able to succeed and ensure that you know the right way to go. I’d rather I beat you down than the police beat you down. They don’t love you nor care about you. They’ll shoot you and frame you and the paper will laud them for ridding the world of another one of us. So, be good and I won’t have to use this anymore.” He grabbed his black leather belt as the car came to a halt in the church driveway. The gold buckle reflected the sunlight into my eyes, as he rubbed my head. “I love you.”

P.S. I have been writing three times a week, just not posting. I am beginning to remember things that I told myself to forget...

-Marz